Photographing Objects: Tarot Cards!

My photography club is holding a seminar on product photography this week. Since this is an area that definitely peeks my interest, I was prompted to look around my place for things to photograph and experiment with.

I located some colourful, and quite shiny, tarot cards to practice with. I thought the colour, glossy surface, and general shape of the cards would be fun to work with. I ran out to the local discount store for some black foam core boards, and proceeded to create a mini studio on my dining room table. I created a “box” with the foam core (and some books to hold them up from behind), and set up my soft box next to the table. You are right, this was also an excuse to use my new flash heads. I took a shot of my set up (shown left) to show you.

The makeshift box was a bit of a challenge to maintain in a standing position. I decided that I will purchase some velcro that I will attach to the foam core board to create a more sturdy, and easy to assemble, box for next time. This may also solve another problem I encountered with light seeping in from the seams. I may post on that when I create that velcro-enabled box! A picture is worth a thousand words.

In the end, I came away with some shots I liked. I experimented with having the light fall off the cards, creating reflections of the standing cards on those lying flat, and showing the full cards. Here is my set :

Feel free to post links to your experiments in photography in the comments!